That gives me a chance to share this scientific paper with a critical reader or two. I don't want to say what I think about it because I don't want to affect your reading of it. Here it is.

Abstract: This paper presents evidence of the disruption of a transition from fossil fuels to nuclear power, and finds the benefits forgone as a consequence are substantial. Learning rates are presented for nuclear power in seven countries, comprising 58% of all power reactors ever built globally. Learning rates and deployment rates changed in the late-1960s and 1970s from rapidly falling costs and accelerating deployment to rapidly rising costs and stalled deployment. Historical nuclear global capacity, electricity generation and overnight construction costs are compared with the counterfactual that pre-disruption learning and deployment rates had continued to 2015. Had the early rates continued, nuclear power could now be around 10% of its current cost. The additional nuclear power could have substituted for 69,000–186,000 TWh of coal and gas generation, thereby avoiding up to 9.5 million deaths and 174 Gt CO2 emissions. In 2015 alone, nuclear power could have replaced up to 100% of coal-generated and 76% of gas-generated electricity, thereby avoiding up to 540,000 deaths and 11 Gt CO2. Rapid progress was achieved in the past and could be again, with appropriate policies. Research is needed to identify impediments to progress, and policy is needed to remove them.

I just thought I'd bump this up to remind everyone about it.
My immediate response was to....to....to.....crush it like the cockroach of an article that it really is but then I didn't want to defame cockroaches......also.....I didn't want to have all the fun and thought I would wait and give someone else first crack at it.

I'll just comment on the first sentence for now:

This paper presents evidence of the disruption of a transition from fossil fuels to nuclear power, and finds the benefits forgone as a consequence are substantial.

As people became informed about the possible dangers of nuclear power plants as they were designed and constructed at that time they began requiring safer designs and installations. You can call this a "disruption" when it might also be characterized as being "society becoming aware of the possible dangers of nuclear power and demanding better safeguards".
The sentence then goes on to mention the "benefits forgone" because of society becoming aware of the possible dangers of nuclear power....although they don't frame it that way. This abstract doesn't talk about the "disruption" being caused by the need for safety and if they did talk about it then they might have mentioned about how one of the "benefits" which were foregone because of this "disruption" might include hundreds of fukushimas....thousands of corroding tanks (perhaps millions) sitting all around the world containing some of the nastiest substances known to man just waiting to bleed out into the ground, rivers, lakes, oceans all around the world (there is still not a cost allowable method for containing the waste in a manner acceptable to the safety conscious)......high level nearly bomb grade fissionable material attracting terrorists around the world...
More could be said about the rest of the article....I have only commented on the first sentence.
chownah

18 years ago I made one of the most important decisions of my life and entered a local Cambodian Buddhist Temple as a temple boy and, for only 3 weeks, an actual Therevada Buddhist monk. I am not a scholar, great meditator, or authority on Buddhism, but Buddhism is something I love from the Bottom of my heart. It has taught me sobriety, morality, peace, and very importantly that my suffering is optional, and doesn't have to run my life. I hope to give back what little I can to the Buddhist community, sincerely former monk John

It appears they are planning on splitting the batteries up into several banks. They are not going dedicate the entire installation to one purpose.

They probably won't do that. With state of the art controls and metering they will just inject what is needed into the grid and monitor it.

I'm told that separating banks used for different purposes is the way it's normally done. That's a battery technology issue. It has to do with usage and re-charging regimes to maximize the life of the batteries. (I know that is the case for lead-acid batteries)

A important question is whether Li-on batteries are the smart, wise, and cost effective battery technology to use for that application. I suspect there are better ones for this type of fixed plant.
Li-on is compact and light weight which makes it good for portable devices and vehicles. There are serious questions about how much lithium is available world wide if countries replace half their gas auto fleet with electric.

Serious people in the solar business think the Tesla power bricks are a bit of a stunt. For a home one can put together conventional deep cycle lead-acid batteries purchased from local sources for quite a bit less than the equivalent in Tesla power bricks.

A key metric for all storage technologies is number of GWh (watt-hours) they can store over their lifetime divided by the tons of carbon released (the cost in carbon emissions) to go from raw materials in the ground to a finished, working battery bank. Plus the carbon emission of operating and maintaining the batteries.

My info is a couple of years old but pumped hydro was the clear winner on costs and emissions. Lead-acid and the newer generation of immersed plate batteries (like lead-acid but with milder liquids) come in second and third.

This battery has shown without doubt that all of those overblown concerns about the stability of the grid with the use of solar/wind have been laid to rest.

I don't know that "overblown concerns" you are thinking of and what mix of solar/wind and dispatchable power you are speaking of.
. . . The system is not stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it. And even then it's not stable 24/7.
REVISED: With systems like the Tesla bank the grid would not be stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without additional similar stabilization plants or other forms of short term stabilization. Even then it's not able to meet demand 24/7 without sufficient backup generation or storage that could supply the grid for several days.

Solar/wind plus a lot more electrical storage plus enough dispatchable generation to cover demands on it's own without help from solar/wind -- those three factors would be one combination that would work.
If you disagree then explain your solution.

Last edited by Leeuwenhoek2 on Thu Jan 11, 2018 12:22 am, edited 1 time in total.

It appears they are planning on splitting the batteries up into several banks. They are not going dedicate the entire installation to one purpose.

They probably won't do that. With state of the art controls and metering they will just inject what is needed into the grid and monitor it.

I'm told that separating banks used for different purposes is the way it's normally done. That's a battery technology issue. It has to do with usage and re-charging regimes to maximize the life of the batteries. (I know that is the case for lead-acid batteries)

A important question is whether Li-on batteries are the smart, wise, and cost effective battery technology to use for that application. I suspect there are better ones for this type of fixed plant.
Li-on is compact and light weight which makes it good for portable devices and vehicles. There are serious questions about how much lithium is available world wide if countries replace half their gas auto fleet with electric.

Serious people in the solar business think the Tesla power bricks are a bit of a stunt. For a home one can put together conventional deep cycle lead-acid batteries purchased from local sources for quite a bit less than the equivalent in Tesla power bricks.

A key metric for all storage technologies is number of GWh (watt-hours) they can store over their lifetime divided by the tons of carbon released (the cost in carbon emissions) to go from raw materials in the ground to a finished, working battery bank. Plus the carbon emission of operating and maintaining the batteries.

My info is a couple of years old but pumped hydro was the clear winner on costs and emissions. Lead-acid and the newer generation of immersed plate batteries (like lead-acid but with milder liquids) come in second and third.

This battery has shown without doubt that all of those overblown concerns about the stability of the grid with the use of solar/wind have been laid to rest.

I don't know that "overblown concerns" you are thinking of and what mix of solar/wind and dispatchable power you are speaking of.
The system is not stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it. And even then it's not stable 24/7.

Solar/wind plus a lot more electrical storage plus enough dispatchable generation to cover demands on it's own without help from solar/wind -- those three factors would be one combination that would work.
If you disagree then explain your solution.

Leeuwenhoek2, you have far too many vague, irrelevant and out-of-date statements here - and just plain old guesses - to be taken seriously (I have given in to temptation and helpfully bolded a lot of them), and far too few references. If you want to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it, I think you should do some research.

Serious people in the solar business think the Tesla power bricks are a bit of a stunt. For a home one can put together conventional deep cycle lead-acid batteries purchased from local sources for quite a bit less than the equivalent in Tesla power bricks.

Great! I guess then that the lead acid battery industry must be booming beyond belief.....is it?
chownah

The system is not stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it. And even then it's not stable 24/7.

This is absolutely preposterous.....wind/solar with enough storage will be stable 24/365. If you disagree then please bring the facts of why....where is the instability going to come into this scenario?.....presently the best system for stabilizing a grid is large lithium ion battery installations like the Tesla Neoen. It stabilizes a grid better than any previous technology ever operated on the grid I think.....I would love to get some information showing that I am wrong as I am always eager to learn more about this stuff and I always recognize that what I have learned might be wrong.
chownah

Leeuwenhoek2, you have far too many vague, irrelevant and out-of-date statements here - and just plain old guesses - to be taken seriously (I have given in to temptation and helpfully bolded a lot of them), and far too few references. If you want to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it, I think you should do some research.

I hope the serious reader appreciates that there is research behind my recent posts. I am no dabbler. Just a few years ago I lived off-grid with a renewable electric power system I put together and maintained myself. I've put in the time reading technical literature and technical blogs. Furthermore it's quite unreasonable to ask for references on everything from an unpaid writer. Especially so when the complaining parties do little to no research or citation themselves.

-----------------------------------------------
On a personal note, it looks to me like I'm doing most of the 'heavy lifting' here. I wouldn't 'waste' my time here except to get some feedback (including from 'deniers') with the knowledge that the work may get picked up and used by others.

There is, in my opinion, a serious problem of 'over the top' assertions and proclamation by Buddhist leaders and Buddhist activist or campaigner groups. Tragic because their statements are neither necessary for the goal, ethical or contribute to wise understanding. Instead they tend to increased polarization, to scandal and perhaps understandable denunciation.

It's ironic that Kim Ohara's responses to Leeuwenhoek2 posts are rarely supported by evidence or research; gives little evidence of 'want[ing] to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it'; and does little evident work but complains when others don't do more. Kim, it seems is blind to the internal contradictions and behavior. I fail to see the compassion in that.
<Corrected text>

Kim if you really 'want to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it' then stop this trolling like behavior and do what you demand from others.

Last edited by Leeuwenhoek2 on Fri Jan 12, 2018 1:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.

...wind/solar with enough storage will be stable 24/365. If you disagree then please bring the facts of why....where is the instability going to come into this scenario?.....presently the best system for stabilizing a grid is large lithium ion battery installations like the Tesla Neoen. It stabilizes a grid better than any previous technology ever operated on the grid I think.....I would love to get some information showing that I am wrong as I am always eager to learn more about this stuff and I always recognize that what I have learned might be wrong.

** "I would love to get some information showing that I am wrong as I am always eager to learn more about this stuff ".
Me too. I'm frustrated at how hard it is to find. It's partly due I'm lead to believe because there are a number of unknowns including technology not proven at scale. People have told me that they like the way I put together diverse information in useful ways so I thought I'd try on this topic.

With enough storage I can power anything forever. It always been known that we can go %100 solar/wind with enough raw materials and money.

See previous post -- there are trade-off's between the carbon emissions, other environmental impacts, availability of raw materials and costs of such large scale solar/wind which makes nuclear power look much more attractive in the next 50 years. That is why a majority of climate scientists (says James Hansen), general scientists (AAAS poll) and nuclear scientists and engineers favor some level of nuclear power in the mix.

Your other questions have been addressed in recent posts.

Short term stabilization, which is what the articles seem to indicate is the goal, obviously requires much smaller batteries than long term support of large loads for hours or days.

The challenges increase sometimes dramatically with higher and higher levels of solar/wind. The same for replacing larger amounts of fossil powered generation with stored electricity. Currently there are inflection points reported at about %20 penetration and again at about %40 - %45.

The use of inverters or other electronic means of high precision stabilization seems to be a key factor for high precision stabilization. How valuable that extra precision is to the grid? I don't know.

Another is the instantaneous and sustained availability of power. With spinning generators (spinning reserves) the inertia of the rotors act as a flywheel. This is one way the system stabilizes itself without solar or wind. But there can be a gap between the time the flywheel starts to slow down and additional driving power (water, steam, diesel motor) can compensate. Again, with lower levels of solar/wind (less than %20) the existing systems are said to be able to work.

Filling in that gap is where some kind of battery systems shine. On the other hand ... Extra flywheels, capacitors/ultra-capacitors, solar or wind banks held in reserve for that purpose or batteries all could provide the extra instantaneous power. DC booster motors on the generators could take power from batteries or solar/wind bank reserves to fill in the lag if needed.

With conventional generators a % of max power (capacity) is held in reserve for providing stabilization and "load following". Finely tuned modern systems run at about %92 of capacity. I don't know how much additional reserve capacity generators have to hold back in order to stabilize solar/wind power which doesn't supply its own stabilization. That is one of those pieces of data that are hard to find. But the generators complain that they are paid by how many gross MWh they produce, not how much stabilization they provide. So the payment incentives need to be changed.

--------------------------------
** "Presently the best system for stabilizing a grid is large lithium ion battery installations."
It works -- but is a li-on battery required to make it "the best"? Two different questions. When second best is also good enough then do you use cost and other impacts to decide?
I'm saying that what is "best" remains to be seen -- I don't know of a good study that has looked at lithium ion battery vs. other battery technology vs. ultra-capacitors. It works -- but is it the "best"? Best based on what qualities? A previous post reported on the installation in California that provided high quality stabilization using only solar panels.

The system is not stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it. And even then it's not stable 24/7.

This is absolutely preposterous..

Read the quote again. I think we are saying the same thing in different ways.

Having looked back at the exchange between us on this issue I can see a few places where our thinking may have diverged. I won't belabor the point by trying to track them down and bring them up for discussion.
What I am saying is that I interpreted what you say here to mean that even with sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it that the grid would not be stable 24/7.....in other words I took this to mean that you are saying it is impossible to stabilize the grid 24/7 with storage.....i.e. what does "And even then it's not stable 24/7." mean?
chownah

The system is not stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without sufficient stored power or other means to stabilize it.. And even then it's not stable 24/7.

Solar/wind plus a lot more electrical storage plus enough dispatchable generation to cover demands on it's own without help from solar/wind -- those three factors would be one combination that would work.
If you disagree then explain your solution.

OK. Point taken. On it's own the first paragraph is wrong. The next paragraph corrects it.
I should have written:

With systems like the Tesla bank the grid would not be stable with higher penetration levels of solar/wind without additional similar stabilization plants or other forms of short term stabilization. Even then it's not able to meet demand 24/7 without sufficient backup generation or storage that could supply the grid for several days.

Does that correct the problem?

In the first sentence I was thinking in terms of systems like the Tesla project recently installed in Australia. The available information indicated it was mostly dedicated for short term stabilization.

There is, in my opinion, a serious problem of 'over the top' assertions and proclamation by Buddhist leaders and Buddhist activist or campaigner groups. Tragic because their statements are neither necessary for the goal, ethical or contribute to wise understanding. Instead they tend to increased polarization, to scandal and perhaps understandable denunciation.

Can you give some examples?

It's ironic that Kim Ohara opinions are rarely supported by evidence or research; gives little evidence of 'want[ing] to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it'; and does little evident work but complains when others don't do more. Kim, it seems is blind to the internal contradictions and behavior. I fail to see the compassion in that.

Kim if you really 'want to add to our knowledge rather than subtracting from it' then stop this trolling like behavior and do what you demand from others.

as well as rude.
I already do, most of the time. Pick any one page of this thread, or any one page on the "Climate change recent data" thread, and see how many contain no references. If you can find a page on which I post multiple times but don't provide multiple links, show us - and I will duly apologise. If you can't find such a page, I will expect an apology from you.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, plans to award contracts in December for the construction of its first nuclear-power plants, according to a government official involved with the project. ... The kingdom has received requests from five bidders from China, France, the U.S., South Korea and Russia to perform the engineering, procurement and construction work on two nuclear reactors...

Saudi Arabia is seeking to diversify its economy and lessen its dependence on oil sales for most of its official revenue. As part of these reforms, the country wants to meet a larger share of its energy needs from renewables such as solar power and from nuclear plants.

Its neighbor the United Arab Emirates plans this year to complete the first of four reactors.

https://phys.org/news/2017-02-sodium-ion-batteries.html wrote:Lithium-ion batteries have become essential in everyday technology. But these power sources can explode under certain circumstances and are not ideal for grid-scale energy storage. Sodium-ion batteries are potentially a safer and less expensive alternative, but current versions don't last long enough yet for practical use.

The capacity factor is the average power generated, divided by the rated peak power. is also known as the load factor.

To calculate the average power generated, just divide the total electricity generated, by the number of hours.

If we could do what economists do, and just assume that all other things are equal, then yes, a higher capacity factor is better than a lower one – but all other things vary in important ways, so that would be a useless assumption.

For any given decent wind site, the developer could choose turbines that would give a capacity factor of 1%, or a capacity factor of 80%, or anything in between. It’s an economic decision. ... a developer could choose a turbine with very long blades, and very low rated electronics, so it would generate its peak rated power pretty much any time when there was more than a breeze, and that would result in a capacity factor at a typical onshore wind site of about 80%, but it would deliver much much less electricity almost all the time.

A developer could choose a turbine that gave them an 80% capacity factor, and they might save a bit of money on buying the turbine and contracting the grid connection, but the reduction in energy generated would be far greater, so the return on investment would be much worse. The very high capacity factor would be a bad business decision, for the developer and for the energy system as a whole. So maximising the capacity factor would be a bad decision: it would be almost all the same costs, but with a lot less energy generated.

The maximum possible power at any one moment will be determined by the wind speed, but the actual power generated can be anywhere between zero and that value, and it can be rapidly varied up and down within that range, to provide frequency-control and other balancing services to the grid (this has been referred to in the scientific literature as synthetic inertia, and some grid controllers are already harnessing these services, allowing wind turbines to increase grid stability).

Wind Power Could Blow Past Hydro’s Capacity Factor by 2020
Measure decrease when dispatchable sources are used more for peaking power and/or stabilization

Capacity factor is the ratio of a generator’s annual power production to the power it could have produced if it ran at 100 percent rated capacity 24/7.

The capacity factor for conventional dam-based hydroelectricity is lower -- in the 40 percent range -- owing to its use as flexible, load-following supply. Despite the continuing shuttering of coal capacity, hydro’s capacity factor has been slowly declining ...

barring another wind drought ... these tools could help America’s wind industry surpass the capacity factor of hydroelectricity, in asymbolic passing of the baton for the 21st century.

There has been some interest in this thread about the neoen-tesla battery in south australia and here is the first article which I have seen which explains a bit of the technical side of what that battery is doing for the grid but yet in a mostly understandable way:

...for the partial retraction, which may be the nearest approach to an apology that I see.
This response to you won't be supported by evidence or research, either. If you post anything which is so unfocused that it's not really right or wrong, it doesn't deserve a referenced response and won't get one from me. Look again at our interactions and you may see that pattern.

The central fact that will drive the energy industry worldwide in 2018, profoundly affecting businesses, consumers and policymakers, is that “clean energy” is now “cheap energy.”

Fossil fuel extraction is expensive. It is giving way to cheaper, more flexible technologies, primarily renewables like wind and solar, and electric vehicles. These shifts will change investment decisions, business models, household usage, employment patterns and politics. ...

Coal is facing a market buzz saw

Coal demand for power generation will continue its long decline and bleak outlook. Globally, long term trends, driven by economics, climate and environmental policy, are moving away from coal. Expect to see more cancellations of proposed new plants around the world and more retirements of existing plants.

In the U.S., the coal industry’s public relations efforts won’t overcome the sector’s weak fundamentals, characterized by more coal-fired power plant retirements, low energy prices and unstable export opportunities. ...

The oil industry is In decline

Oil prices have been on the rise over the past two years, moving from a low of $28 per barrel to over $60 per barrel, after the biggest crash in oil prices in decades. But even as the overall U.S. stock market soared in 2017, the energy sector faltered, competing with telecommunications for the worst stock performance in the S&P 500. ...

Even if oil prices continue to rise in 2018, they will not rise sufficiently to cover the overall costs of oil and gas companies or state-run organizations. Natural gas assets will continue to be plagued by high demand and a business structure inadequate to the tasks of maintaining sustainable profit levels. How publicly traded companies will cope with diminishing profits and how political leaders in oil producing countries will manage the challenge to their political legitimacy will be important to watch.

Consumer nations now have options other than to accept the economy-destroying effects of rising oil prices, and their responses may surprise the oil producers.

In sum, the pace of change in every sector will only increase as prices for clean energy decline. Attempts to hold back the tide of transition will inevitably fail.

Nucelar power doesn't even get a mention.
I think its window of opportunity slammed shut when the price of solar and wind dropped far enough to be competitive with fossil fuels. At that point, nuclear had no advantages over any other technology - it was neither cleaner than solar and wind, cheaper than fossil fuels, nor quicker to build than either of them. And of course its waste disposal problem remained unsolved.

There has been some interest in this thread about the neoen-tesla battery in south australia and here is the first article which I have seen which explains a bit of the technical side of what that battery is doing for the grid but yet in a mostly understandable way:

Chownah - what parts were hard to understand? Crikes -- how do you ask a question like that without it reading, in the back of my mind, as a sharky, rhetorical statement with a disingenuous question mark at the end?

The article confirmed a number of points I made earlier.
Undesirable events on the power grid cause supply and demand so go out of balanced causing the frequency and voltage of the power system to moves away from the normal operating range.

Contingency services essentially stabilise the system when something unexpected occurs. ... The tripping (isolation from the grid) of [a] large generator is one example.

This is usually done by rapidly increasing or decreasing output from a generator (or battery in this case), or rapidly reducing or increasing load. This response is triggered at the power station by the change in frequency.

Here is my interpretation of the next paragraph. The contingency services ensure that the system is brought back into balance. To do this, generators have some of their capacity reserved for providing contingency services. This essentially means that a proportion of a generator or storage capacity is set aside, and available to respond if the frequency changes.
FCAS = Frequency Control Ancillary Services

To do this, generators (or loads) have some of their capacity "enabled" in the [Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) FCAS market. This essentially means that a proportion of its capacity is set aside, and available to respond if the frequency changes. Providers get paid for for the amount of megawatts they have enabled in the FCAS market.

The battery stores excess power from a nearby wind farm when demand allows it. The battery is rated to "power up to 30,000 homes, though only for short periods — meaning that the battery must still be supported by traditional power plants in the event of a long outage." (LA Times).

There are eight different Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) markets in the National Electricity Market (NEM).

There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that most people rarely if ever hear about. And there quite a bit of 'acronym soup' too.

FYI: Because of how AC electricity is generated by the spinning coils in a conventional generator frequency and voltage are co-dependent. The frequency of the alternating current (AC) comes from how fast the generator is moving/spinning. A sudden heavy load (demand) slows down the generator -- this causes both the AC frequency and the voltage to drop.

Everything here is interrelated. Total power created by the generator depends on voltage. Watts (electrical power) = volts X amps.

The devices called inverters used by solar farms, battery banks (wind farms too probably) regulate voltage and frequency separately. Inverters use banks of high power electronic components. A percentage of the power is lost in the conversion process -- the best ratings I've seen claimed on smaller inverters is a loss of about %8.

Hype?? I'm thinking that a editor, not the author, wrote the title -- that happens a lot. Because the article doesn't say that or even say what the "expectations" were. This is mostly fairly mature technology. The questions had to do with cost and 'scaling' problems-- problems which sometimes crop up when things are done at a large scale.

A big thing I'm going to watch for is how long the batteries last. That has been a disappointment in previous installations. Various companies have invested a lot in continuing R&D on software and control systems that carefully manage the recharging and discharging (rate of use) of batteries.

Problem: Refugee camp. Lots of people, all arrived recently and most arrived destitute, no infrastructure. What to do for electricity?
Solution: cheap, quick, and can largely be build by unskilled labour.

Problem: Refugee camp. Lots of people, all arrived recently and most arrived destitute, no infrastructure. What to do for electricity?
Solution: cheap, quick, and can largely be build by unskilled labour.